Sambodrome ....And the Shooting

The experience of visiting Sambodrome is unrivalled by anything else in America. On Sunday and Monday evenings the 14 Rio Samba Schools compete at the Sambodrome. The Sambodrome is a 650 metre long "street" with view stands and seats on either side. The structure itself is quite boring, but with the colourful crowds, lights, fireworks, and TV screens, it comes alive. My guide book says it holds 40,000 people, but being there it seemed more like a hundred thousand or more.

The competition is a parade of dancers and floats that starts at 7 p.m. and continues for about 12 hours. We lasted till 3:00 a.m. The Samba dancers and floats from each school start at one end and have 1 1/2 hours to dance to the other end. They are penalized if take a longer or shorter time. During this time and distance, they have to perform the many samba dance steps that they have practiced over the previous months. The dancers` costumes are an exotic array of illuminating colours, unique designs and flamboyance representing anything from birds, bugs, animals, plants, men, women, etc. The floats are intricately designed, flamboyant, colourful displays that stretch the mind to its limits. There are thousands of dancers and hundreds of floats. Its an amazing spectacle of extravanganza and the energy created by the Samba bands has the whole stadium cheering, singing, and dancing to the beat of the music. Brazilians love to party - and this must be one of the world~´s largest and merriest carnival. But, eventually, your mind can absorb no more, and its time to leave.

We walked back in a group of about 15 for safety around 3:00 a.m. in the morning, passing groups of highly colourfulç Samba dancers and others, still strutting guitars, drumming and singing - everyone happy, laughing and enjoying the special opportunity to celebrate.

As the first of our group approached an intersection about 2 blocks from the hotel, a car stopped. Two men jumped out, one shot his gun at the other, but missed, then proceeded to whack him over the head with the butt of the gun. With blood pouring down the side of his face the beaten guy took off down the road. Stunned, we stopped, and struck with fear we struggled to protect ourselves as best we could. The front of the group dived into an open store on the corner; Sam bolted down the street in the oppostite direction; Manfred darted behind the trunk of a large tree; Ray and I ran back and hid behind a construction barricade. There were 2 children and a women in the car, and they were crying and screaming trying to take cover. From somewhere another man appeared and threw his arms around the crazy gunman firmly yelling at him to "calm down" but the gunman continued to fire his gun and let off another 3 shots. Gretel was really scared as she could not quite get the cover she wanted in the store and the gunman was right in front of her. Having experienced violence in her life, old memories were flashing through her mind. The gunman got back into his car and fled into the night. The chap trying to quieten him disappearedç and we all slowly emerged from our hiding places, walked the remaining blocks to the hotel in stunned silence and headed to the bar for a badly needed drink and to exchange descriptions of the events - none of which were identical! No wonder, the police have such a hard time piecing evidence together! We have no idea of the cause of the gunman´s violence, nor will we ever. Suffice it to say, this random act could have happened anywhere in the world. We still love Rio, feel no more threatened or unsafe, and will continue to keep an awareness relevant to the situations we are in. Rest assured though, any loud gun-like bangs we hear will put us on our guard!!